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Demographics key to D-428 plans School board members to further examine Chesebro projects By JILLIAN DUCHNOWSKI jduchnowski@shawmedia.com DeKALB – DeKalb School District 428 leaders want to study demographics as they consider renovating and reopening Chesebro Elementary School for its youngest students. School board President Tom Matya asked administrators to
start studying how many families would be affected by opening a pre-kindergarten and early childhood center at Chesebro. The board ultimately could decide what projects to include in the renovation in February after construction bids are received. “We can weigh through all these alternatives,” Matya said at Tuesday’s school board meeting.
“I think that’s when it’s appropriate.” District leaders are considering renovating the vacant building at 900 E. Garden St. in DeKalb so nine classrooms can operate there and free up space in other district elementary schools, which are near capacity. Board members reviewed the potential costs for renovating
both Chesebro and Tyler Elementary School at their meeting Tuesday. They are expected to vote on giving administrators permission to seek bids for both projects Oct. 15. The renovation plans have been funneled through the district’s finance and facilities advisory committee, a group of school officials and community leaders
who advised school board members on how best to use a $21 million construction grant. The committee is scheduled to consider the Chesebro projects Oct. 9. At Chesebro, renovating nine of the 14 classrooms would cost $322,300, while finishing the remaining classrooms would cost
Tom Matya School District 428 board president
See D-428, page A4
Blame game Housing numbers getting better ensues as government shuts down By DAVID ESPO and DONNA CASSATA The Associated Press
Monica Maschak – mmaschak@shawmedia.com
Real estate investor Lindy Arnett (right) discusses the brochure and lease requirements with managing broker Alison Rosenow on Thursday at a DeKalb home.
Real estate professionals optimistic about DeKalb County By FELIX SARVER fsarver@shawmedia.com DeKALB – Lindy Arnett has seen as little as one day of vacancy in the homes she has rented out in the past four years. Arnett and her husband, Robert Walters, decided to invest in real estate after retiring from careers in information technology. They bought two homes in the Heatherstone subdivision in DeKalb and have rented them for four years. “That we can get people into those houses as renters means the [real estate] market is very good,” she said.
The market has been good not only for investors such as Arnett and Walters, but it’s been showing improvements overall in DeKalb County. The county joins several others in Illinois that have shown rising home prices, shorter market times and more home sales since the housing bubble burst in 2008. In DeKalb County, combined sales of attached and single-family homes has increased by 34 percent this year, with 142 units sold thus far, according to data provided by RE/MAX, an international real estate company. An attached home shares at least one common wall with anoth-
er home, while a single-family home does not. For attached and single-family homes in DeKalb County, the average market time, which is the amount of time between when a home is put on the market and when it’s sold, decreased by 42 percent in August. It had been taking an average of about three-and-a-half months for a home to be sold, down from about six months in August 2012. The median price for a home in August this year was $123,750, which is close to $3,000 less than the median price for a home in August 2012.
WASHINGTON – First slowed, then stalled by political gridlock, the vast machinery of government clanged into partial shutdown mode Tuesday and President Barack Obama warned that the longer it goes “the more families will be hurt.” Republicans said it was his fault, not theirs, and embarked on a strategy – opposed by Democrats – of voting on bills to reopen individual agencies or programs. Ominously, there were suggestions from leaders in both parties that the shutdown, heading for its second day, could last for weeks and grow to encompass a possible default by the Treasury if Congress fails to raise the nation’s debt ceiling. The two issues are “now all together,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. Speaking at the White House, the president accused Republicans of causing the first partial closure in 17 years
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We think buyers are jumping off the fence because prices are increasing, but prices are historically low.
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Laura Boyer
President-elect of the DeKalb Area Association of Realtors about recovering home sales in the county
AP photo
A park ranger, who declined to give his name, reads a sign Tuesday announcing the closing of the Statue of Liberty in New York.
See HOUSING, page A4
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